Isis calls for attack on Miss World pageant

Isis (Islamic State) terrorists have called for attacks at the Miss World competition due to be held in the Philippines in January, as the group urges its followers to hit Western targets.

A branch of the terror network called on "everyone who can" to launch attacks at the event, according to reports of posts on a social media channel used by jihadis in the Philippines.

One of the posts included an online tutorial that explained how to make a suicide bomb.

Addressing "brothers who love martyrdom", the author said "everyone who can" should launch attacks at the event. It was not possible to verify the reports.

The location for Miss World 2017 has yet to be announced, but current champion, Filipino-German model Pia Wurtzbach, is likely to attend.

Isis has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks on Western targets since 12 people were killed in an attack on the headquarters of the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly magazine in Paris last January.

In recent weeks attackers acting alone have targeted individuals and groups in Europe, the most recent being an attack at the weekend by a machete-wielding Algerian shot dead by police after injuring two female officers.

The change in approach has coincided with campaigns against Isis in its strongholds in Iraq and Syria.

The Miss World beauty pageant was last held in the Philippines in 1994.

The event is expected to attract a lot of attention next year after Wurtzbach was crowned in extraordinary scenes at the contest in December last year. The host, Steve Harvey, announced Ariadna Gutierrez Arevalo, Miss Colombia, as the winner - and then realised he had read the card incorrectly. The crown was taken off Arevalo's head and placed on Wurtzbach's.

The threat from Isis has been growing in the Philippines. Abu Sayyaf, an insurgent group fighting for a hardline Islamist state in the southern Philippines, has pledged allegiance to Isis.

Two Canadians were murdered by the group earlier this year.

Abu Sayyaf has its roots in the longstanding Islamist insurgency in the southern islands of the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines, and has focused its operations on lucrative banditry. The faction - a loose alliance of splinter groups - has survived the deployment of US special forces "advisers" as part of George W Bush's "war on terror" and a series of offensives by the poorly-equipped Philippine army.

The West under attack

The list of attacks on Western targets claimed by or blamed on Isis (Islamic State) continues to grow:

August 6 Machete attack in Belgium: A 33-year-old Algerian attacks two policewomen with a machete before being shot dead by a third officer.

MANILA � As chair of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) pillar, the Department of Social...

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